For many people, music is essential for a satisfying and strong workout. It's not just about elevating our mood or keeping us in rhythm, though. Scientific American rounds up the recent research showing just why music helps us run faster, cycle longer, and do other exercise much better.

Music affects our bodies and minds in multiple ways:

Music distracts people from pain and fatigue, elevates mood, increases endurance, reduces perceived effort and may even promote metabolic efficiency. When listening to music, people run farther, bike longer and swim faster than usual-often without realizing it. In a 2012 review of the research, Costas Karageorghis of Brunel University in London, one of the world's leading experts on the psychology of exercise music, wrote that one could think of music as "a type of legal performance-enhancing drug."